ROMERÍA World Cinema

Winner of Berlin’s Golden Bear for ALCARRÀS (AFI FEST 2022), acclaimed Spanish auteur Carla Simón made her Cannes competition debut with this brilliant, deeply personal meditation on identity, memory and family. With a digital camcorder in hand, 18-year-old Marina (Llúcia Garcia) arrives in the glittering Galician port city of Vigo ready to meet her father’s family for the first time. Orphaned at a young age, Marina’s paternal family all but disowned her — her mere existence a reminder of a shameful secret. But on the verge of attending film school in Barcelona, Marina needs her grandparents to finally legally acknowledge her heritage to claim a scholarship. A big messy family with their own individual recollections of the past; Marina’s arrival is greeted with a mix of warmth and skepticism. Reading her mother’s diary, the truth about her parents and their romance slowly starts to reveal itself, exposing echoes of the past in a breathlessly staged flashback shot on Super-8 film stock. Simón’s return to the fervent ground of her childhood — here working with acclaimed cinematographer Hélène Louvart (LA CHIMERA, AFI FEST 2023) — is a powerful act of cinematic reclamation, interrogating familial myth making to chart a new path forward. –Josh Gardner